Short of rowing for Oxford at the Henley Regatta, with a double Tanqueray and tonic balanced on your knee, there are few experiences more acutely British than climbing into an Aston Martin DB7. It smells like Prince Charles's polo closet in there but with fewer riding crops strewn on the floor. Let your hand fall randomly and it will either squeak as it stubs burl walnut or it will leave a fingernail crease in Connolly cows kin softer than the sweaters worn by Her Majesty's royal corgis.

At what other car company would the executive chairman, one David Price, patiently explain, within minutes of meeting you, that his car "has just won the 'Dream Choice' award from the Worshipful Company of Coachmakers"? At what other car company would the designers rupture themselves to fashion replica Smiths gauges that probably nobody will recognize because they all work? At what other car company would you find a suspension engineer with the name Kingsley Riding-Felce? Okay, okay-maybe Rolls-Royce.

But Rolls doesn't build a torpedo as svelte and as classically proportioned as the DB7 and probably never will.

The shape of the car you see here—among the first 20 DB7s to arrive in America—is the handiwork of Scotsman Ian Callum, formerly a senior stylist at Ghia. Callum says he took a cut-no-corners approach to sculpting this overtly feminine shape, although one of the corners he did cut was a usable back seat. "I was not going to compromise the silhouette of the car to accommodate a six-foot- four passenger in the rear," he explains. Actually, we'd have preferred a nicely carpeted parcel shelf.

We earlier tested the DB7 coupe (April 1996), but this is our first serious go at the Volante, which is Aston-speak for convertible. As it turns out, the droptop with the four-speed automatic (GM's 4L80E) is the mainstream DB7 for North America. Of the 200 DB7s to be delivered here this year, about 140 will be so equipped. A manual five-speed Getrag is a no-cost option, but it feels out of place in this luxocruiser, just as a manual feels hot-roddish in, say, a Jag XJS or in an 8-series BMW. Besides, Aston's heavy clutch linkage is a bad match for its light shift linkage, and the brake pedal juts up too high for graceful heel-and-toeing.

Assembled by Tom Walkinshaw Racing, Aston's 24-valve in-line six displaces only 3.2 liters. But once it has been forced to swallow some 14.7 psi of supercharged atmosphere, it produces 335 hp at 5750 rpm. This is sufficient to inspire a 0-to-60 sprint of 7.3 seconds and a quarter-mile run of 15.6 seconds at 93 mph. (Next to the definition of "unseemly" is a photo of a DB7 in the bleach box. Don Garlits does not own a DB7.) By way of comparison, the engines in the BMW 850Ci and the Benz SL500 produce similar horsepower but are good for 0-to-60 blasts of 6.1 and 6.3 seconds, respectively. So the DB7 is a tad off the pace; in fact, during this test, four onlookers asked, "You mean, for $146,000 you don't even get a V-8?" Well, no.

There's a lovely feline supercharger howl, plus the whine of the serpentine belt and some intake roar, not to mention a mechanical valvetrain tremolo.

During hard acceleration, the transmission snaps off crisp shifts right at the redline, which is good, because under all other circumstances it has been programmed to seek overdrive. On those high-rpm kickdowns, the engine emits a unique noise. There's a lovely feline supercharger howl, plus the whine of the serpentine belt and some intake roar, not to mention a mechanical valvetrain tremolo. In symphony, it isn't exactly a sports-car sound and it isn't exactly a luxury-car sound. Something more like an industrial furnace on the high-speed setting.

Given enough motorway, the DB7 Volante (top up, naturally) will achieve 149 mph-close to the 152 mph of a Jaguar XJR, which, not coincidentally, is also powered by a supercharged in-line six. Of course, there is something loutish about driving this very proper British convertible so barbarously fast—a little like putting four olives in your afternoon restorative at the Lord's Club.

During top-up cruising at 70 mph, the DB7's cockpit is blessedly silent. The top stack's structure is taut and squeak-free. And the car tracks in a straight line, even on pockmarked pavement. At lower speeds, the steering becomes unnecessarily heavy. Parallel parking isn't exactly a wrestling match, but you'll use both hands to turn the wheel. At least the steering is communicative; you can always feel the texture of the asphalt beneath you. Turn-in is predictable but not razor sharp.

Dig deep beneath the DB7's creamy exterior and you'll find a modified Jaguar XJS platform. It is satisfactorily rigid, a fortunate starting point for a two-ton convertible.

The steering wheel itself adjusts for both rake and reach, and the driving position is comfortable, although the footwells are radically tapered, thus cramped. The front-seat cushions are narrow and firm, in the Porsche 911 tradition, and provoked no complaints during a 12-hour tour of the Long Island Hamptons. By Brit standards, the DB7's ergonomics are completely insane; this is because, by our standards, they're largely normal. Which is an amazing feat, given the number of pirated parts in this car—the side-view-mirror adjuster is from a Ford Contour, the ignition key and the seat controls are right out of a Jag XJS, and the exterior mirrors have been swiped from—are they kidding?—a Citroen.

Dig deep beneath the DB7's creamy exterior and you'll find a modified Jaguar XJS platform. It is satisfactorily rigid, a fortunate starting point for a two-ton convertible. Within minutes of sliding behind the DB7's wheel, you'll say, "Wow, it's larger and heavier than I expected." Indeed, this is a cross-country grand tourer, not a cut-and-thrust sportster.

With killer 18-inch, 40-series Bridgestones all around, you'd expect a bone-rattling ride. Nope. Kingsley Riding-Felce was on the job. As it happens, the ride is terrific, with few high-frequency jitters and little crash-through. Yet the movements of each wheel are well damped, and there's so little body roll that bombing through turns won't spill much of your polo partner's iced tea.

This is a ride-and-handling trade-off similar to an 8-series BMW's. As in the BMW, it is difficult to sling the DB7's tail out, and you'll often catch yourself wondering whether the motor really produces 335 horsepower. Even the rowdiest brake-torque starts elicit but a chirp from the rear tires. Not that you'd ever act so delinquently in front of the Lord's Club or anything.

Lowering the top is a breeze: Unfasten two header latches and push a button. The entire process can be accomplished from the driver's seat. The windows lower automatically, although the upper two inches of the rear quarter-windows are always exposed—an odd aesthetic flaw from designers who knew this car would be sold principally as a droptop.

By convertible standards, the Volante evinces minimal cowl shake. Over high-crowned and frost-heaved New York roads, we rarely noticed the A-pillar and windscreen flex out of sync with the sills and doors. And there's little vibration that rises up through the steering column.

Top down, the cockpit succumbs to only modest buffeting. You won't reach for your tweed cap until 70 mph. (Warning: Do not wear anything as common as a baseball cap in a DB7, or Aston reps will fling cheap gin on your jodhpurs.) Until 70 mph, you may also converse in nearly normal tones. But during our test, we twice had to reinsert the four plastic clips that hold the pliable tonneau in place.

It takes five days to complete each DB7 body shell, which is then shipped to Rolls-Royce, where the paint is applied until it achieves the depth of a child's wading pool. That it is so flawless is impressive.

Of course, you won't raise the top more often than is absolutely necessary. With the lid up, headroom is at a premium for any occupant taller than five-ten, and if you have ample hair, expect it to tickle the velvety headliner. Another problem: When the top is raised, vision rearward through that gun-slit backlight is Thurber-esque. Two blind spots manifest, and there's no available view of the car's hind corners.

It takes five days to complete each DB7 body shell, which is then shipped to Rolls-Royce, where the paint is applied until it achieves the depth of a child's wading pool. That it is so flawless is impressive. Several panels—notably the front fenders, bumpers, and trunklid—are made of resin-transfer-molded plastic, a compound whose surfaces are lumpier than stamped steel.

Indeed, the DB7 has been bolted, glued, and screwed together like no Aston in history. Check out the tricky butt joint between the burl walnut and the instrument-cluster surround. In our car, the seam was so perfect we couldn't wedge a paper clip in there. Subtle touches abound, like tiny tubes that funnel air-conditioned breezes to each headlamp nacelle, keeping the lenses fog-free. And when you slam the doors, the side glass rises a half-inch to seal firmly, as in a BMW.

LOWS: Clunky gear selector, useless back seat, lack of headroom and visibility when the top is raised.

Some criticism: The gear selector feels like the flag on an aluminum mailbox, clunky and not securely connected to the linkage. The Alpine radio is littered with buttons so minuscule as to make them largely unusable when the car is in motion. The plastic high-mounted brake light is a tacky add-on. And the passenger airbag has devoured the hole that should be a glove compartment.

With luxury tax and destination fees, the DB7 Volante fetches $146,530, a bottom line more commonly observed on, say, mortgage documents. Of course, there are no options, unless you demand an exterior hue that matches Boy George's wallpaper. Non-Aston colors cost an extra $2500.

Because the company has already built some 800 coupes for other markets, many of the early assembly glitches had been resolved before the first DB7s hit our shores. Nonetheless, there came a moment when I said to photographer Kiley, "Did the engine just go silent, or have I lost what's left of my hearing?" Our Volante had inexplicably quit dead as we were motoring at 30 mph on a straight country road. Just as inexplicably, it restarted 10 seconds later and never missed a beat thereafter, an anomaly that persons of British extraction accept with equanimity. Still, our advice is that your garage and the dealer's garage not be separated by more than 25 miles, although this maxim likewise pertains to patrons of Ferraris, Lotuses, and Ditchburn mahogany speedboats.

THE VERDICT: A dignified, two-seat luxo cruiser-England's answer to the Mercedes-Benz SL600.

The DB7 isn't a sports car. It's a bewitchingly gorgeous two-adult luxury grand tourer whose manufacturer assumes you will conduct yourself decorously as you gambol serenely past less fortunate car's closest rival is the $133,765 Mercedes-Benz SL600. Both offer exalted topdown motoring and the fealty of curbside valets worldwide. Sure, the Benz is quicker and easier to service, and includes twice as many cylinders. But if you buy the big-boy Benz, you want to have a name like Dr. Kissinger or Arthur Schopenhauer. Whereas with the DB7, you want a name like Crispin Pemberton-Piggott or, better yet, Kingsley Riding-Felce.

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